Methodology for VPUU programme analysis

In order to evaluate the VPUU programme the author has used a mixed methodology, which included three main approaches. The first approach consists of interviewing main stakeholders involved in the project. The second approach includes a literature review of publications about VPUU, of related policies and also interviews with stakeholders involved in those. The third approach has been to spend as much time as possible on the site of intervention selected in order to analyse the spaces, their use and the perception of them. In fact, the whole method revolves around the analysis of a specific case study: the VPUU Harare project.

The Harare project is considered the flagship project of the programme and apparently is used by the CoCT as best practice project to learn from. This last approach included interviews conducted to people living in the area who use, live or manage the space around the public space analysed. And about 55 interviews have been conducted including main stakeholders involved in this project, and people or organizations using the spaces. The three approaches mentioned will be described more in details in the next sections.

Firstly, interviews by the author within 2016 and 2017 includes the following people or organizations – considered as main stakeholders – involved with VPUU programme ³³⁹:

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Mr. Michael Krause – CEO of VPUU NPO since 2006, urban designer

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Mr. Alastair Graham – VPUU programme manager at the CoCT

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Mr. Andreas Gensinke – operational and maintenance coordinator at the CoCT

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Mrs. Jackie James – consultant architect for VPUU from 2005 to 2015

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Mrs. Nicola Irving – consultant architect for VPUU

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Mrs. Tarna Klinzner – consultant landscape architect for VPUU

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Mr. Siyabulela Ngwenduna – VPUU, institutional crime prevention, operational and maintenance facilitator/ tenant manager

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Mr. Marco Geretto (CoCT), senior urban designer: TDA Cape Town, urban integration department

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Mr. Krishna Naidoo³⁴⁰ – engineer at integrated transport system office at the CoCT

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Regional Socio-Economic Programme (RSEP)³⁴¹

339 All the people/ offices mentioned are linked somehow with the design, implementation, policy-making of VPUU programme. Moreover, interviews have been conducted also to people living in the area who use, live or manage the space around the public space. Those last interviews have been part of the third approach. In fact, about 55 interviews to people directly involved in VPUU Harare project has been conducted.

340 The author met also more informally Mr. Ronald Haiden, engineer and former director of the transportation department at the CoCT.

341 https://www.westerncape.gov.za/rsep-vpuu/

Secondly, the literature review includes the analysis of the policies about public spaces examined in chapter 4.2.2. In addition, the author has studied internal and external publication specific of VPUU Harare project. The main internal publication is a manual developed by VPUU (Krause et al. 2014). “The manual sets out a model of how to use safety as a public good to develop human potential and improve Quality of Live (QoL) of communities towards Sustainable Neighbourhoods (SN) in low-income areas” (Krause et al. 2014, 7). This internal perspective describes the aim of the programme, its methodological approach and give examples of intervention. It is called manual since “it is aimed to be of assistance to Government at all levels—National, Provincial and Local—to Non-Government Organisations (NGOs), Community Based Organisations (CBOs) and any other agencies or individuals engaged in the process of human development in area-based approaches” (Krause et al. 2014, 7). The main goal is the provision of a higher level of safety, but the vision includes the provision of public services, the cooperation with community through a participatory approach, the improvement of spatial, social, cultural and economic aspects of poor and excluded communities. That is the reason why it is considered an integrative approach. VPUU produces also post-occupancy evaluation and impact studies which aims to improve their method in time. This is an important novelty in the approach, but it also presents a fundamental problem since these studies were not shared: to be useful these post-occupancy studies should be shared and made public. Firstly, they could be useful for projects like this which look at the VPUU program as an example. Secondly, the fact that these documents have not been shared makes the author suspicious about the transparency of the process or its results. In fact, despite the insistence of the author, it was impossible to consult these documents, just as it has been very difficult to get in touch with the association and therefore to know the internal point of view³⁴². Other internal documents – produced by the CoCT or VPUU – have been consulted to fill this gap (among others Giles 2006; SUN development 2009; Cooke 2011; VPUU 2014; Future Cape Town 2015; ACC-VPUU 2015, Ewing 2017). Some of them are internal working documents, some have promotional intent and other have been created to report to financers. A second group of publication analysed comprises a set of works by external researches that focus on specific aspect of VPUU project. Since the programme and its implementation is quite new³⁴³, there

342 Email exchange between the author and the VPUU happened before the author sojourn in 2017, when the VPUU case study has been as selected. Initially, the author was interested in a collaboration with the VPUU office, which eventually was not possible.

343 2005 can be considered as the official start of implementation of VPUU in Cape Town.

5.3 VPUU programme 151 are few publications which have tried to evaluate the programme³⁴⁴. These publications can be divided in:

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impact study on Harare library (Patel et al. 2015; Skarzynski and Nassimbeni 2016)

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defensible space analysis of VPUU Harare project (Fester 2015)

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informal trading around Khayelitsha station (James 2013)

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health impact studies on VPUU programme (Cassidy et al. 2014;

Matzopoulos and Myers 2014; Cassidy et al. 2015)

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social cohesion studies on VPUU programme (Barosky 2014; Barosky 2016) To the author’s knowledge, what is missing is a research specific on spatial aspect of VPUU project. The quoted researches have addressed different problems linked to VPUU programme, without a specific focus on the spatial role of public space.

The purpose of this thesis is to describe and examine the relation between VPUU intervention and public space. In order to maximize the understanding of existing researches, to comprehend their spatial aspects and to examine in depth the methodology used, the author have also interviewed people directly involved in the studies mentioned above:

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Mrs. Najma Patel and Mr. Janusz Skarzynsky – researchers and librarians for CoCT: research on Harare library

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Mr. Ryan Fester – researcher at Development Action Group (DAG): master thesis on VPUU Harare project

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Mrs. Jackie James – consultant architect for VPUU: research about informal trading around Khayelitsha station

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Mr. Richard Matzopoulos – researcher at South African Medical Research Council: impact study on VPUU programme

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Mrs. Diana Sanchez (researcher interested in formality and informality) and Mr. Ncedo Mngqbisa (field report researcher, ethnographic work) – Human Science Research Council (HSRC): research about social cohesion in VPUU Harare project

Thirdly, Khayelitsha is not an easy place to go to, especially if you are foreigner, white and woman. Therefore, spending time on site for field work for the author has not been an easy task to achieve. Consciousness about risks and will to consider Khayelitsha as an ordinary³⁴⁵ neighbourhood have been combined to go beyond prejudices. The time spent in Khayelitsha has been an essential element for a qualitative analysis of the space. In order to justify the time around

344 It could be misleading the fact that some of them cooperate with VPUU office itself therefore may be partial: in particular the health impact studies. Those studies are anyway relevant since they are quantitative studies.

345 See chapter 3.1.2.

VPUU Harare project, the author prepared a questionnaire draft³⁴⁶ (Appendix 1) which has been used to involve and talk with local people. The semi-structured interviews have been used for two reasons. On one hand, they serve to engage interviewees and to have an excuse to spend time with them on site. In fact, Harare public spaces or streets are not places where a researcher can easily apply Gelh rules on how to study public life: observing, counting, mapping, tracing, tracking, looking for traces, photographing etc. (Gehl and Birgitte 2013).

Therefore, tools and timing of the research had to be adapted to local context³⁴⁷. One the other hand the semi-structured interviews has been conceived in order to understand the perception and the use of new Harare public spaces. To achieve this goal, the definition of public space (chapter 3.2.1) has been verified through specific questions about what people consider as a great – quality, inclusive, fair – space (Appendix 1). These informal conversations with local people have also been essential to help the author comparing different perspectives (designers, politicians, users). Additionally, since the majority of Khayelitsha population is isiXhosa speaking, the help of a local research assistant (Mr. Ayanda³⁴⁸) has been essential. The support of a local mediator has been important both to make people feel more comfortable talking and listening to isiXhosa language³⁴⁹, and also it helped the author in gaining confidence³⁵⁰ within the context. The author interviewed 39 people or association who work, live or use the Harare project public spaces. The choice of the interviewees has been as diverse as possible, including women and men, people living or working around the areas of intervention³⁵¹, formal and informal activities, profit and no-profit organization, local and community stakeholders working in the whole Harare project area.

346 The questionnaire draft has been discussed with Mrs. Stella Papanicolaou (Professor at UCT, School of Architecture planning and Geomatics) and Mercy Brown Luthango (researcher at ACC). Both gave to the author useful suggestions to readdress research questions and to align them with the questionnaire.

347 For example, evening and night observation of the space has been excluded for safety reason. The same thing has been done also by Gehl Architects and Cape Town Partnership in 2005 within the research project called A city for all. Actually, that research has been narrowed to public spaces in Cape Town Central City. Information about this unpublished study have been retrieved through a skype interview with Andrew Boraine, CEO at Cape Town Partnership at the time.

348 Surname of the assistant is intentionally omitted to protect individual privacy.

349 90.54% of the population in Khayelitsha is isiXhosa speaking. The majority of them speaks also fluent English. The local mediator has been extremely useful when the interviewee was more comfortable to speak the mother language in expressing her/his reasoning.

350 Having a young black local man walking with the author around Harare helped the author to feel more comfortable, to recognise dangerous situation to stay far from or hazardous timing to walk around. Unfortunately, people from townships are used to be exposed to lot of challenges and violence. Therefore, they are more used to identify dangerous situations.

351 Most of the interviewees were originally form the Eastern Cape and just few of them where originally from other African countries.

5.3 VPUU programme 153 Names of people are omitted to guarantee their privacy, while a list of activities is provided to show their heterogeneity:

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informal traders at the station area³⁵²

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formal traders and manufacturers³⁵³ renting VPUU commercial spaces or live-work units³⁵⁴

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Youth Life Centre, Masibambane Hall in Harare Square – Love Life³⁵⁵

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Football for Hope centre³⁵⁶

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Environmental & Health Office in Harare Square

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Sikhula Sonke ECD (early child development)³⁵⁷ community-based organization (interview with team leader of Emthonjeni³⁵⁸ and their visit)

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Learn to Earn³⁵⁹ organization, which include the shop Feel Good

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Neighbourhood watch office

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Harare library in Harare Square³⁶⁰

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Iqhayiya art and craft³⁶¹ co-cooperative market

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Development Action Group (DAG) no-profit organization

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Councillor of Ward 98 office in Harare Square

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Ward Youth Development Council (WYDC)

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Ward Development forum (Community leader)

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TB HIV care Khayelitsha no-profit organization

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Safe Node Area Committee (SNAC)

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Kwamfundo secondary public school (interview with deputy principal)

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St. Maicol private pre-school (interview with principal)

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Social Justice Coalition³⁶² no-profit organization

The map in Appendix 2 shows the location where the interviews took place and therefore the places that have been observed more closely. Just few people did not allow the author to take photos.

352 Some examples: fruit and vegetable shack, furniture shack, fruit movable seller.

353 Some examples: hair salons, coffee shops, fridge and oven repair shop, electrical and metal pieces shop, metal work activity, cloth shop, tv-radio repair shop, church pastor office, cloth designer’s shop, driving school, internet point, pharmacy product seller…

354 Details about live-work units in the chapter 5.3.3.

355 http://lovelife.org.za.

356 https://www.grassrootsoccer.org.

357 http://www.sikhulasonke.org.za.

358 http://vpuu.org.za/success-story/emthonjeni-success-story/.

359 https://www.learntoearn.org.za/index.php/contact-us.

360 First and actual librarian have been interviewed.

361 http://www.qinisanani.co.za/iqhayiya-arts-and-crafts/.

362 http://www.sjc.org.za.